by J.C. Phillips 

One of my frustrations in listening to the campaign rhetoric of the various candidates vying for our nation’s highest office is their repeated use of the phrase “global war on terror.” The description is grating, rather like fingernails on a chalk board. Moreover, the use of this tired and inaccurate expression indicates an inexplicable lack of will in political circles to call our enemy by its proper name. We are not at war with terrorism; we are at war with Islamic fascism or what has come to be known as Jihadism. Our enemy is the idea among certain of the Muslim faith that they must bring the world to kneel before the prophet Mohammed. We don’t need to guess at their intentions. Our foe says without hesitation that it is his intent to raise the flag of Islam first over Jerusalem then over the world. They have similarly demonstrated through their actions that they are willing to use any means necessary to accomplish that goal.

We seem more than willing to engage in myriad conversations about America’s failure to live up to her own moral standards. Indeed for certain segments, it is all the rage to talk of American evil and to compare Republican administrations to the worst tyrants in history. As a nation, however, we remain rather reticent to move past the sophisms and face head-on the real threat to world peace and prosperity.

At bottom this is a war of ideas. Americans, therefore, must be zealots of a different kind. If we are going to be victorious, we must resist the temptation to embrace the multicultural relativism that teaches that all cultures are equally valuable and that all ideas are equally constructive. Victory demands that we make the objective and decidedly non-politically correct judgment that our culture is best – that our ideas of limited government, of individual and property rights, and most importantly, a secular government that supports and protects the expression of all religious ideas, is the best way or at least the best way we have found. Our ability to unflinchingly make this judgment will determine our eventual success or failure.

It is not xenophobia to confidently suggest that democratic expression is preferable to religious coercion; indeed, that liberty is preferable to slavery. We gain nothing by discarding our ideas in favor of the soft socialism of Europe (much to the chagrin of many here in Hollywood) and we stand to lose everything by ignoring Winston Churchill’s maxim that “Compromise with tyrannical evil is not possible.” Nor do we display leadership through capitulation to the will of a world government body. It is not the sanction of the United Nations that is the source and foundation of our leadership, but the embrace of our American ideals.

These ideas — that all men have a right to their private property, their liberty and the right to worship God (or not) as they see fit, and that the government has a duty to protect those rights — are the ideas that have provided America with vast reservoirs of talent and innovation and continue to draw the best talent from around the world to our shores. If we are not able to make the moral case for why our American ideals are better than those of Jihadis, even with a force of marines a million strong, we are doomed to lose this war.

As this election takes shape, I am excited about the cultural changes America is poised to undergo. I am, however, much less concerned about the race or gender of any candidate than I am with their ability to properly identify the enemy and wage an aggressive war on many fronts – a war that will ultimately determine not only the survival of America but also the survival of American ideals.